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Tuesday, March 22, 2016

‘Govt. taking steps to make Bidar drought-proof’

Source: The HIndu:-

The State government is taking steps to ensure that Bidar becomes drought-proof in the future, Deputy Commissioner Anurag Tewari said here on Sunday.

“The district administration has begun the process of land acquisition for the construction of 78 new tanks in the district. These will be spread across the five taluks. Around 400 ‘kalyanis’ are being cleaned and dredged. We have taken up the cleaning, dredging and protection of 55 minor irrigation tanks and 170 open wells across the district. More than half of these wells are yielding water,’’ he said. He was speaking at the World Water Day celebrations at the Rang Mandir.

“The most important gift of the Bahamani Kings to Bidar was the underground drinking water ducts called ‘karez’ or ‘surang bavis’. The State government has allotted Rs. 8 crore to clean, excavate and dredge the seven ‘karez’ systems in and around Bidar. We have begun cleaning the first one and have completed dredging and excavating to an extent of nearly 2 km of the total 3.3 km of the ‘karez’. Once this is complete, we will take up the other lines. This will ensure that Bidar has two sets of drinking water systems, one above the ground and the other below the ground,” he said.

Mr. Tewari said that the district administration would dredge not only public wells, but also private open wells too to help residents get water.

“The district administration will open a web page to show the progress of such works. Citizens can give suggestions and indicate the location of wells and tanks that needed to be cleaned,” he said. He also announced a scheme to be taken up along with the Forest Department where each family would be encouraged to grow 10 saplings in the name of each of their daughters.

Hanchate Sanjiv Kumar, Principal District and Sessions Judge and chairman, District Legal Service Authority, said that water conservation was the responsibility of every citizen.

Praveen Kumar Naikodi, natural resources management specialist from the College of Horticulture, spoke in detail about rain water harvesting.

He said that a house with a rooftop area of 100 sq. m could get 85,000 litres of rain in Bidar and one hectare could get over 85 lakh litres in one year.

Vishwanath Patil Koutha, raitha sangha leader, asked farmers and NGOs to take up the cause of Godavari water that remain unutilised. Bidar should get 22 tmcft of Godavari waters as per the Bachawat award. But they were not fully utilised yet, he said.